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I almost always get them from the manufacturer myself

Occasionally MS fixes their problems.

I know it's sad for an IT guy, but my main machine is still 98SE with an Intel mobo and I've always had problems with the 98SE WinUpdate device drivers.

I've been meaning to upgrade the beast (to NT, then 2K, now XP) but it's got so many utilities and crap from over the years, I'm caught in dread between an upgrade or a building a completely new machine and reinstalling everything.

Even doubly sad since I've made a living fixing 'puters since early DOS (now through XP), and servers since NW 3.X through MS 2003.

It's kinda like the carpenter who never fixes his own broken stairway.

So far as the thread topic at hand, I just don't see what's the big deal about Microsoft verifying the legitimacy of software that they update. If someone doesn't want Microsoft validating their Windows, then don't update! Piracy is illegal and its wrong - and I don't see why I should have to subsidize all the software thieves when I buy mine.. How else are they supposed to verify without looking?

As for your primitive computer system, I was very resistant to upgrading from 98SE myself, but I'm very happy that I did! I still haven't migrated the greater part of my old setup over here to XP, but if nothing else it's given me a real good idea of what I actually use and what I had just wasting space on my harddrive..

When I upgraded last time though I just connected the two systems together, created a partition, and put my entire old system onto my new system. Then, whenever I wanted something I'd move it over. Eventually I realized I didn't need anything that was left of the old stuff so I removed it and that was that. You can also just connect the two machines by USB and use one of those migration software packs.